The day has just started for me and I am still waiting for a customer. My duty is from 9 a.m. to 9 a.m.. Every day is different for us. After all, not every passenger wants our service. I used to work as a driver before I took up this job six years ago. The Railways had advertised for porters and I applied for the same.
My duty is at the Power House road entrance of the station. I wait here along with another porter. The other porters are at the main entrance of the station.
We don’t have a fixed salary. The Railways has fixed Rs. 50 as the labour charge for 40 kilogram of luggage. Usually, such huge pieces of luggage are carried by passengers who travel by long-distance trains. They carry rice, coconut, electronic goods, provisions, clothes, and eatables, among many other things. The 40 kg-mark fixed by the Railways applies for head load alone, which can’t be adhered to always.
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It is a back-breaking job and you have to be healthy and strong enough to take the luggage up the stairs and walk along the platform.
If I am carrying the luggage from this entrance via the stairs to the first platform, I cover almost one km. If I am taking it to the AC compartment of Kerala Express, it is at one end of the platform. So whatever we earn is hard-earned money.
But there are many who refuse to give us their luggage thinking that we charge a lot. Some of them even show their aversion on their faces.
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If you ask who or what is our biggest enemy, then I would say it is the trolley bag! All of us feel the same. Escalators have also affected our work to some extent. There are days when I earn Rs. 200 to 300. But there are days when I don’t earn anything.
It is those travelling by trains such as Nethravathi Express, Kerala Express, Ananthapuri and certain weekly trains who avail themselves of our services on most occasions. Over 20 trains depart from the station daily and an equal number arrive at the station. In addition there are weekly trains. It is a huge figure compared to the time when there were just seven trains that left from the station. In fact, my colleague Radhakrishnan, who has nearly 30 years of service, told me that there were only two platforms then.
The advantage of being a porter is that I have been issued a travel pass, meant for me and wife. I wish that covered my children as well. I live at Nellimmoodu with my parents, my wife, Mini, and our four children. When I don’t have duty here, I take up driving. Thus I somehow manage to make ends meet.
All said, I shouldn’t forget those passengers who generously give me more than the fixed labour charges. There are some who offer us a cup of tea even. I fondly remember a passenger on Jan Shatabdi Express. He would give me the seat number and ask me to keep his bag, a fairly small one, there, and he would go away to buy fruits or short eats. His only condition was that I shouldn’t keep the bag on the floor or in some dirty place! I don’t know his name and haven’t seen him for a long time.
(A weekly column on men and women who make Thiruvananthapuram what it is)